15 Apr 2018 13:36:14
Hey Ed, is there any reported interest from English clubs for Napoli's Piotr Zielinski? Looks to be a very special player and would surely be a huge asset for any prem team, especially as he is still young.

BitterBlue

{Ed002's Note - Manchester City had a sustained interest in taking Piotr Zielinski early in 2016 as padding for their squad but Udinese didn't want to sell him - and they stepped back from their pursuit of him completely after watching him during the latetr part of his loan at Empoli. A number of other clubs looked at him whilst on loan at Empoli including Brighton, Liverpool, Napoli, Roma, Auxerre, Young Boys and Bayer Leverkusen. Udinese still remaiedn unconvinced about the player and the plan was to pass him off to "sister" side Watford for a season. However, Napoli approached Udinese to see if something could be done and Roma also had a declared interest. Meanwhile, the player said he had been approached directly by Klopp and that they have spoken, but he then retracted that statement and said that Liverpool approached Empoli and not him - which is rather bizarre as he was only on loan at Empoli and they would have needed to approach Udinese. He then corrected himself and again said he had spoken directly with Klopp. Udinese were very, very unhappy about the disruption and tapping up - and wrote to Liverpool copying in UEFA and the matter was put aside after Liverpool spoke to them and backed away from effectively being forced in to a corner of having to buy the player at the full asking price. This damaged his relationship with his club completely and he was forced in to making the move to Napoli, which at the time he didn't want. He pretty quickly established himself as a regular and has done well at Napoli and has a long term contract. Napoli will not want to sell. If they are open to offers, it will take a very large sum of money to attract their serious interest in selling.}